Julie's New School
by qsuff
Summary: A look into Julie's new school, Seven Starts Academy. Set after the short story, "Magic Tests" by Ilona Andrews.
1. Chapter 1

JULIE'S New School

A Kate Daniels Fan Fiction

Quan T Suff ( qsuff)

= = =

Chapter 1

Life in post-Change Georgia is filled with noise, mayhem and violence, but here in Seven Stars Academy, where the pampered offsprings of various were-animals, mages, witches and the occasional human are shoved together under one roof, peace reigns. It isn't because we see ourselves as one under the benevolent sky, working towards world harmony. No, there are no love beads and smoking of peace pipes here, unless one counted the few, more furtive, applications.

The real reason we manage to get along is because of our Principal, Mr. "Call me Gendun" Dargye. He's like a vacuum cleaner for violence: any blood-letting thoughts just gets sucked right into his gentle smile. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get mad either, but you find yourself nodding in agreement two minutes into any argument with him. That's so unfair, and just nasty.

The cafeteria today isn't exactly an idyllic pool of tranquility, that had departed after the first seating for the decidedly vegetarian.

The current, second seating catered to students whose diet included cooked animals. The noise levels have risen, but no more than the usual clatter of utensils, conversation, laugher and loud burping,

The third, and final seating is the most raucous, and is reserved for the were- and magical creatures who need raw meat and fresh blood. They only have one feeding per day so they consume huge amounts of freshly-thawed animals in various icky ways. And since my home is the shapeshifter's keep, trust me when I say I know what icky means. The cleaners then spend the rest of the school day mopping up.

= = =

"I'll be back," I said to the gang after I dropped my food tray on our table.

"Where're you going, Julie?" Asked Ashlyn, who survived on water and sunshine, but had been sitting with us since I unraveled her from inside a tree. Next to her, Sheila narrowed her eyes at me, as if smiling at her bestie was a mortal crime.

"Gotta have a talk with the god." I kept my face pleasant as I looked toward the corner where our resident deity, Yu Fong, held court.

"Oho!" Chortled Brook, "fireworks time!"

"Does it have to do with this morning?" Barka, who was a pretty strong mage, could not have missed the flare-up in class earlier. "Been nice knowing ya Julie!"

Yu was supposedly 18, but could pass for any age. One look at his perfect face would drive any sentient thought out of your head. Good thing I was totally immune to it. Now he'd added a smile to it. His cronies / acolytes shied away as I passed, even though their injuries had been healed since I'd given them.

"Hi, did you get..." His greeting faltered and he sniffed, "...my present?"

"This one?" I said and held up a large white flower, with soft petals veined in blue. "I found it on my desk this morning."

His frown deepened, looking less sure now, "You didn't ... open it?"

I hadn't, but when I tried to pick it up, it had, magically speaking, exploded and coated me with an overwhelmingly vile flowery scent, which necessitated a hasty visit to the nurse's office.

The medmage there, whose nametag read F. Tessect R.M.M, Registered Medical Mage, was most impressed. She stared at my problem for a long time, hmm-ing and tsk-ing as she strode around me.

She chanted a bit and teased a small piece out so she could poke at it. "Seems like it's made up some sort of magical core that keeps regenerating the scent. Wrapped around a geas to find you. It's intricate…" Her voice became reverent, "... most intricate. And it keeps attaching itself to your skin!" No kidding.

Without my asking, she gave me permission to stay, I think more for ease of research on my body than compassion.

"Hey, it's following your aura." The mage declared, "It's so cool how this piece I got off you keeps pulling to go back to you!"

Really? That takes the creepiness to a new high. I activated my super-vision and looked. Silvery magic, from a god, which left no doubt about who the culprit is now. Underneath that, was a barely perceptible film with the same whiteness and blue veins that was on the original flower. Clinging to me, to my aura.

I'd seen my aura before. Kate, my adoptive mom, had saved my life by giving me half her blood, and now both of us had our basic human-ish blue shot through with every flavor of magic: the yellow of shifters, witchy brown, some red and purple vampire, and maybe a dash of silvery god-hood as well.

Did Yu see all that? I hoped not, but perhaps there's a way to find out now. At the shapeshifter's keep, Dr. Doolittle (yeah, no kidding) could chant and duplicate whatever part of me he wished, and we could see how it affected the Julie-tracking magic. Unfortunately, asking the school's medmage to do that would make her look too closely at me. So I would have to do it myself.

Which was easier said than done. I was a sensate, meaning I could see magic flavors better than any machine could, magic or otherwise. Between Kate and my other almost-foster-parental-unit, the Beast-lord Curran, they know practically everything, and they had told me the whole world knows of maybe a handful of us. So we're jealously guarded commodities. And that's why it is imperative to let no one know about my skills.

Being able to see the magic does not automatically mean I could do anything about it. All I'd ever been able to do was to "borrow" the weaves around me and hide in it, a sort of invisibility cloak, I suppose. But that was before I'd seen what the Doc could do. I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the flows when he was healing.

He would chant and separate some of the translucent, neutral strands out of the air, move them to touch the part of me that needs healing, and it would adapt a sameness... Chanting was what he used to manipulate the streams of... magic? But I can feel them, even without the chanting. Eyes closed, I pushed at the threads to do what I've seen the Doc do, separating out and moving to my arm, then changing its color to mine. Something touched my arm.

I cracked an eye open. Was that patch darker? Slowly, gradually, a blueness spread out. Awesome!

I urged more uncolored threads out, and getting them to assume a feel for like the human "me." Using my fingers to mime grabbing at spaghetti seemed to help and soon a blue blob the size of my thumb wobbled on my arm. I could nudge it around and it appeared to suck up some of the smelly slime.

"Something's happening," Mage Tessect said tightly, "I'm incantating like there's no tomorrow and the thing is still fighting to go to you! I can barely hold it!"

Aha! So Yu had only seen and targeted the human me. The whiteness was clearly flowing towards the blue blob now, and as I moved it around, the film melted and reconsolidated around my "smell."

"Maybe you should let it go," I told the mage, "Before it explodes, or something." I moved the still growing lump towards her and she stopped her chanting with a sigh of relief. As soon as she stopped calling up threads to tie it down, the little white fluff flew back to me.

"Can I get a note to use the girl's showers?" I asked quickly, before she noticed what I was doing, "Maybe I can scrub it off." And settle some scores.

She looked at me and smiled sadly, "Probably won't work, but..." She scribbled one out and I rushed off, careful to keep the stink-blob between us.

I stayed in the girls' change-room and spent the time until the next class bell working on a suitable camouflage. Then I went to lunch, ready for revenge.

= = =

= = =

= = =

"Obviously I didn't open it, do I look that stupid? I can tell it's magical… What would have happened if the magic was down?" I asked, trying to distract the baby god.

"Then it would be invisible," His smugness was coming back now. "It's a pure magic construct, and it only exists when enough magic exists." Okaay - learn something new, even from ass-holinesses.

"You're magical, mostly, sorta, so how come you don't disappear?"

"The human part of me can store magi… But the flower…?" He pointed.

"It's hollow isn't it? What did you put inside?"

"Only the most rare, most sought after perfume," He practically crowed, "it's called the Heavenly Blossom of a Hundred Days, because the scent lasts that long." Right... they must have called garbage dumps perfume factories where he came from.

"Really?" I blinked at him, and he nodded solemnly back. "Then what's it supposed to do? How was I supposed to get it?" I just needed his undivided attention for another minute.

"It's made to recognize you when you touch it, then open and present you..." His frown deepened and he shook his head, "I just don't..."

"Do you mean something like this?" I asked, releasing the painted paper wrapper I had fashioned around the blob. This time, the white junk flew and swarmed over him, where I had spent the last few minutes coating with my human scent.

I took a deep breath and smiled, "You're right - smells like some perfume only a girl would wear. A hundred days, you say?" I stood, "Thank you very much, but I can't possibly accept."

= = =

"I see you're still in one piece." Barka commented, when I walked back to our table. "Surprising."

"Yeah, he's so sure you won't make it back, he scarfed your fries and pudding!" Ashlyn said.

"Talking about frying, maybe you should go sit off by yourself," Barka said, "You won't want us to get zapped when he fries you with a bolt of lightning!" He demonstrated a weak sizzle between his thumb and finger.

"Gee, that's amazing!" Brook gushed, "You could totally wipe out an ant with that!"

"But aren't you afraid of him?" Ashlyn asked, glancing at the corner. "You saw how he burned up the Th-thing!" The 'thing' being an eight foot tall wolf-demon that was getting ready to eat Ashlyn and me, so the burning up part was definitely good.

"Nah," I shrugged, "he can't figure me out, and I've got a few tricks up my sleeves." Hopefully I could figure them out myself before I needed them.

"What kind of magic do you have? I feel something, but it comes and goes." Asked Barka.

"Well, I can…" I started. A few people had seen me 'read' magic with my sensate sight, and it would be very dangerous if they figured it out. "I, er, I can copy magic."

"A Mirror witch?" Gasped Barka.

"No, no," I laughed, "No blood or, er, sex is involved. It's simple, once someone show me some magic, and if it's not too crazy or powerful, I can copy and use it, once."

"Just once?"

"Yeah, once, maybe twice. It's like an imprint. Once I do it, it disappears." I thought a bit, "Remember Lisa?"

"The Dud!" "Good riddance!" There was no love lost between the students and Lisa, who had been asked to leave after unleashing the aforementioned wolf-demon on us.

"Remember what she did?"

"Telekinesis."

"Yeah, she did some of it right next to me, so…" I concentrated and fashioned strands like the medmage had done to capture the scent thing. "I could…" A french fry lifted itself out of Barka's tray, swished in the ketchup and wafted into my mouth.

"Steal food!" Chortled Barka, "that's frikkin' awesome! Er, can you do the lightning thing too?"

"You have to show me again."

He opened his hand and a small corona formed in his palm, rolled to his thumb and flashed across to his pinkie.

"Showoff!" Brook sniffed.

I had never seen glittery-gray threads like that, but they were there when I pulled, but all I could do was make it dance a bit on my finger before it zapped me. "Yow, it hurts!" I said.

"That's real good!" Barka said, "You have to keep it off your skin, or it discharges into you." He added belatedly.

"Now you know how we feel." Said Brook, "He does it to our books, pens, you name it!"

The bell went, and not a moment too soon. Yu was walking over to our table, looking totally pissed. "Oops, gotta run. Have homework to finish." I grabbed my tray and hightailed it out of there.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

= = =

When I told Kate that I was willing to give the school a try, she was stunned. She obviously expected more of a fight from me.

The previous school I went to was ultra-traditional - they catered to kids of well-to-do families who expected to sit behind guards and warded walls and be waited on by servants. They had uniforms, and morning assembly. They had classes on Art Appreciation and Social Studies, even Ballroom Dancing as an option, for crying out loud. Some subjects, like Arcane Magic and Herbalism, I could get into, but nobody seemed to care if I did well or not. Chemistry, which I REALLY liked, was so dumbed down I could just gag. I mean, what good is it when you're not even allowed to blow things up?

Seven Stars had a much more practical approach to education. If it helped you survive, then it was important. Knowing which fork to use for the fish course? Not so much.

So I told Kate that Seven Stars seemed to want to teach me things I wanted to learn and, the best part, their students were pretty weird themselves, so among them, I could almost feel normal. She looked relieved, and even agreed to let me board over, since it's a two hour trip to and from the keep and I can't see me getting a car any time soon.

"Might as well," Kate sighed, "When you ran away from your other school, I had to send people out four days in a row to look for you. Here, you run off and I don't see you in 24 hours, I'll be pretty certain you're dead already." Yep, Kate Daniels, mother of the year.

Since the school pretty much jibed with Kate's idea of an education, I was up to strength on most of the subjects. Her freakish knowledge of ancient histories, cultures and languages gave me a leg up in all those subjects and, since she made a living killing things, I was pretty good at weapons too.

The one exception was algebra. I mean I had enough maths to know that a dozen dead bodies meant I needed 12 body bags, but who cares how many pies you need if you had to feed 20 people? Where I come from, it could be 10 or 100, they'd all be eaten. As far as I know, neither Kate nor Curran gave a hoot about algebra, but Kate had told me she wanted to learn everything so I'm trying my best.

Still, I was not in a good mood after fifth period.

"The answer is five," insisted Ashlyn. The same Ashlyn who, in the last test, got a whole 17 as her score.

"Seven." I said.

"F-five." She looked behind me, "Brook, can you please tell her."

"What's the deal?" Brook asked.

"It's just that Python's Theorem…"

"Pythagoras's." Ashlyin corrected. "The answer is five…"

"No, it's the square root, so can you get rid of the squares, 3 plus 4 is… seven!"

"Err, Ashlyn's right, it's five." Brook said, "You have to watch the Precedents. You have to do the Squares first, before you…"

I held up a hand, "Stop, stop. My head's exploding! I can't take this… It doesn't make any sense! It's like they deliberately make up rules to complicate everything!"

"Don't worry, we can go over all this at study period," Brook consoled me, "there's a couple of credits for tutoring."

"Of course," I sighed. Brook is constantly aiming for a 4.5 GPA.

"I know what will make you feel better," Sheila joined us, "will you spar with me at gym?" After a pause, she continued, "Your Mom's a merc, right? I want to join the Red Guard when I graduate." As security goes, the Red Guard is the elite of the elite, and only the best can work for them. Kate had nothing but good things to say about their skills.

"Sure…" I nodded.

"OK, meet you there…" Sheila said, then with a glance behind me, they all took off down the corridor.

"Hey, where are you all going? Wait..."

"Hmm, Julie Olsen, I would wish to speak with you." I turned and a white flower was bobbing about head height. On the petal, a single eye stared at me. Yu Fong.

"What do you want?"

"I would like to speak with you…"

"You said that already, so speak."

"It's a matter of delicacy, to be discussed face to face, as it were…"

"I have gym in ten minutes."

"Excellent, I shall be at the maze." The flower said and drifted away. I considered planting my throwing knife in the thing but it wasn't worth the cleaning afterward.

The school is a gigantic four story square, made up of four wings, and an open garden area in the middle. The gym takes up the width of one wing and, facing it was the Maze, so called because hedges formed an intricate pattern around a solitary apple tree. The maze was also protected by a powerful ward that punished intruders with something close to annihilation.

Yu Fong was sitting on one of the stone benches just outside the maze. Out here in the sunlight, his skin, which was perfect before, took on an ethereal quality and I almost tripped when he moved and a ray of sunlight caught his hair.

"Julie Olsen…" He turned his soft brown eyes on me. So warm, so deep...

"What…?" I snarled. Snarling is good when you feel like falling down and groveling. Snarl good, grovel bad.

"Julie Olsen, you have marked me."

"What?"

"You have left an indelible mark upon my person."

"What? Huh?" I'd really mastered this witty comeback thing.

"At lunch, after I removed the 'Heavenly Blossom of a Hundred Days' scent, I discovered the I have now acquired a likeness of you."

"What do you mean? A likeness of me?"

"It's the essential-ness of your being. And it's part of me now!"

"Essential-ness? Is that a word?"

"Ahh," he threw his hands up, "The English language is so limited! Your… zhen di - your, ah… aura!"

"Oh… My aura." I looked at him, "I needed to get the scent to go back to you! So I made you 'smell' like me, only stronger…"

"You can do that?"

"I guess…"

"You can remove it, can't you?"

"I guess…" Please. Somebody get me out of repeat mode!

"Now…?"

"I… can try… Just sit there and let me think." I concentrated and I could see my blueness interwoven within his human strands. They were also a lot finer than when I put them on him. And there's a lot more of them too. "It's really worked its way in you! It wasn't like that before."

"After I absorbed the scent, I may have tried to absorb your aura too."

Somehow that thought really bothered me. Quickly I held a hand over Yu, urged one of my threads out and it disappeared into my finger. One down, a million to go. "Yeah, I can do it. But you've got it so mashed up it's gonna take a while."

"No problem, I brought a book." He sat back and started reading.

"But I'll be late for P.E."

"If it takes that long, you will finish it later." He replied nonchalantly.

"Why did you send me the flower? And the perfume?" I asked.

"It was intended as a gift to welcome you to the school. And I've been given to understand that perfume is a suitable gift for girls." He frowned, "Did that displease you? Have I been misinformed?"

"The information is not wrong. But," I looked at him, "you know I make my home with a thousand shapeshifters, right? The same shapeshifters whose sense of smell is a hundred times better than ours. So, ask yourself this, how do you think a perfume that sticks around for a hundred days would do to them?"

"Ahhh, I see… I may have been too rash, perhaps..." He paused, "In my youth, some may have judged me impetuous."

"In your youth?" I laughed, "You're still a youth, and still impetuous."

"It may be that you are right, Julie Olsen…" He sighed, "I had not thought beyond the fact that a present from me would bring you happiness."

"I appreciate the thought, really. So thank you, Yu." I said, "But as Kate, my mother, has always said, 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.' "

"Yes… that bears some deliberation…" He turned away and returned his attention to his book.

"What's with the book?" I asked, "I see you reading it all the time."

"I'm not reading it... I'm writing in it."

"Really? Where's your pen?"

He sighed, held it up to me and, amazingly, as I stared at it, words were appearing on the blank page.

"That's is so frikking awesome!" I said, "What language is it? Wait -" Hmmm, block characters, not runic, nor anything recognisable, lemme think "- It's Chinese!"

"Of course, I'm translating an older text into modern Chinese for Gendun."

"What original? I don't see anything here."

"I have it in memory. It doesn't exist anymore - but I had managed to look at a few volumes."

"What happened to the rest?"

"I do not know - I was not able to read beyond the first part."

"What happened?"

"I... I was taken away... imprisoned."

"Why? For what?"

"For destroying the book."

"Wha..?" I sputtered, "You read it, and then destroyed it?"

"Yes." He nodded sadly.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Perhaps another time, the story is quite lengthy. You have to meet your friends in class now." He gestured towards Brook and Barka who were walking towards us.

"OK, yeah, right, you'll tell me after?"

"We shall continue here, and you can finish removing your aura as well."

"We've got a deal!"

= = =

"What WERE you doing?" Whispered Brook, "You picking lint off him?" I suppose it could look like that, me pawing at imaginary noodles in the air.

"Cooties." I said. That got a snicker, which stopped when Yu looked up.

"You told him he has cooties? You must want to die young! Although," Barka grinned, "I once saw a video of baboons grooming each other, and you looked like you were doing that… Do you eat the nits too?" He led the way back, still giggling.

"Hey, Barka, eat this!" I threw a silver sphere at him and it fanned open, sending sparks all over him.

"Ow, ow, dammit, ow, it hurts!"

"Be careful who you insult!"

"Geez, remind me never to show you a trick!" He paused, "Oh, wait, you shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Sometimes, if I get irritated enough, I can do it more than once." I smiled. There, let him worry about that!

"No, I mean the magic is down, there's nothing..." He held up a hand - a mere flicker manifested itself, "nothing!"

"Ahh, just a fluke..." I said, "residual stuff... from hanging around gods." I frowned and shook my head, trying to remember something that Yu had said...

"Oh and Sheila says she'll be at the range while tech is up."

"Great, I'll meet her there then."

"We'll meet you back here after."


End file.
